Yemen Police Beat Female Protesters With Sticks: Activists

SANAA, Yemen — Thousands of women calling for the ouster of Yemen's longtime ruler were attacked on Sunday by police with sticks and rocks, setting off a furious battle with male protesters that left several people hurt, activists said.

The women were marching down a main street in the southern town of Taiz shouting "peaceful! peaceful!" when they were attacked, activist Ghazi al-Samei said.

Three of the young men suffered serious gunshot wounds when police opened fire, protester Bushra al-Maqtari told The Associated Press by telephone. She said over 200 more suffered breathing problems caused by inhaling tear gas.

Army tanks and armored cars stopped other demonstrators from entering Taiz, the site of some of the largest and angriest protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule.

Protesters have been camping out in main squares throughout Yemen for weeks, demanding Saleh immediately leave power after 30 years. The president has offered to resign by the year's end and says leaving without a negotiated transition, would lead to chaos. On Saturday, opposition groups demanded he hand power to his vice president and set up committees to thrash out constitutional reform and elections.

The president's spokesman, Ahmed al-Sufi, said Sunday that the president is only "ready to discuss the peaceful handover of power according to the constitution."

Saleh's top security official in Taiz, Abdullah Qiran, to oversee security in Taiz, is accused by demonstrators of orchestrating some of the most brutal crackdowns against demonstrators, particularly in the southern port town of Aden, where he was previously stationed.

There, some 48 demonstrators were killed over a period of weeks by security forces and Saleh supporters armed with sticks, knives and guns.

At least 97 demonstrators have been killed in Yemen since protests began on Feb. 11, according to the Yemeni rights group Shakayek. About 49 were killed several weeks ago when snipers on rooftops opened fire at demonstrators in the capital, Sanaa.

Comments

[Patricia013]

04:01 PM on 04/19/2011

I was so pleased to see a veritable sea of women in Yemen standing up for themselves....if only that would happen here for equal pay for equal work and abortion rights! I hope to see it in my lifetime...but time is getting short ladies!

[realitybaby]

01:03 PM on 04/04/2011

Stay with all our sisters around the world fighting for their FREEDOM!

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:46 AM on 04/04/2011

That's a photo of women??????????? are they women???????? It's pathetic..... to think this is what that religion thinks women should be seen as.......I.thank the universe I live in this country.

[Patricia013]

04:02 PM on 04/19/2011

Give them credit and pray for them - its so dangerous to do what they're doing and yet they stand up and want their rights!

[rubberroom]

10:33 AM on 04/04/2011

If Muslim men get their way all women in the world will be covered from head to toe so when the beatings begin one cannot see all the bruising. It is after-all, the religion of peace.

[Jennually Wright]

10:30 AM on 04/04/2011

As long as Muslim women remain chattel property of Muslim men, their third world countries will never see the light of democracy. Until Muslim men realize the value and intricate contribution Muslim women can make in achieving their goals of freedom, they will never reach it, for half of the population, Muslim women, will always be ruled by dictators.

[Patricia013]

04:06 PM on 04/19/2011

To a far lesser extent that is the environment here as well!

[Avirahim]

07:22 AM on 04/04/2011

Breaks my heart, to see peaceful protestors beaten, even more that women are being targeted.

[Allan888]

06:32 AM on 04/04/2011

I am starting to think that Arabs are like the Barney Fife of humans.

[natyKos]

10:08 AM on 04/04/2011

I hope you're not generalizing... Maybe adding Arab "policemen" would be more fair.

[vascopyjama]

05:41 AM on 04/04/2011

Fear not! Their brothers, fathers and sons will stand up for them.

[natyKos]

10:09 AM on 04/04/2011

They, will also, stand up for themselves.

[Dick Stone]

02:47 AM on 04/04/2011

Yemeni is an equal opportunity beating country. No discrimination based on race or gender. Please Mr. President do not get us involved in Yemeni, they hate us enough already.

[cliffhammond]

01:12 AM on 04/04/2011

Ergo, the revolution. Too bad it's being hijacked by CIA and Mossad operatives.

[YoungProudBlack]

12:46 AM on 04/04/2011

What do you need women for when you can bang all the little boys you want? I kid! I kid! Well, kind of. Don't behead anyone please.

[cliffhammond]

01:14 AM on 04/04/2011

See what you get for paying attention when they broke the Franklin Scandal and President George H. W. Bush's little secret?

[ramsha]

12:27 AM on 04/04/2011

May be the police suspected them to be men in disguise.

[natyKos]

10:07 AM on 04/04/2011

Not an excuse. Even if they were men; it's never an excuse to rain down on people with sticks even more so when they protest peacefully.

[ramsha]

02:19 PM on 04/04/2011

What you say is true for a decent society, and you ought to know that, not all societies have a code of ethics as to how to treat a peaceful assembly of dissenters.

[TopTigerette]

12:21 AM on 04/04/2011

Obviously those women are to blame for the violence. Didn't they know they would incite a reaction by marching down the street like that?

[natyKos]

10:10 AM on 04/04/2011

You're joking, right?

[Peter Combs]

11:23 PM on 04/03/2011

DO they have a slogan for this? "Beat a Woman, win a Virgin"

after all beating women is just another day in the lands governed by the religeon of love.